Camera Light Metering Basic to Advanced Pt. 1 - Incident Metering
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- Опубликовано: 5 июл 2021
- Today we start a new mini-series, light metering.
In this video I begin the metering journey with incident metering, the basic metering system that measures the light hitting our scene. This gives a very accurate way of knowing how to meter for the scene, dark things will be dark, light things will be light.
Subscribe if you want to know more about metering, from spot to more advanced incident and spot.
John
Pictorial Planet
www.pictorialplanet.com
The key to using an incident meter to get accurate readings is as noted here holding it in the same light as falls on your subject and pointing it directly at the camera. The "why" answer is that the hemisphere dome on the meter partly shades itself from an off-angle light source, which significantly affects the exposure reading and is part of meter's design. A large group of younger photographers on YT use incident meters, but usually hold it out in front like an I-Pad and point it up at the sky, thereby invalidating their exposure readings. Not co-incidently, these are the same guys who recommend shooting film at half box speed. In part, what they are doing is compensating the under exposure of their poor metering technique by setting the meter to over-exposure their film, although they may not understand that.
Agreed, Randall. Pointing it towards the camera, in line with the lens, in the same light as the subject is essential. Many thanks for your comment and reiteration of this important technique.
That's what I came here to find out! Question answered!
Straight and easy to understand tutorial with no fuss whatsoever like those instagram film shooters 😅 I was gifted by a retired photographer the Sekonic L-398, downloaded the manual but still a lil’ bit lost on how to use it. New subscriber here 👍
Thanks, Naza!!
Thank you ! I love all these mini-séries 😋
Excellent, on-point video! Thank you!
Cheers BLM!
I love your book! Thank you so much for preserving and passing down this critical knowledge to us and future generations!
Thank you for such a great comment!
another great video John I'm learning so much looking forward to the next
More to come!
Exactly what I need to nail down in my photos. Thanks.
Excellent!
Agreed on the premise of incident readings, especially for the uninitiated. Lovely Rollei SL-66.
Thanks for your comment, especially about my camera, which I am very fond of! Also about the premise. I wanted to start basic and build up to cover all metering situations. Cheers!
Very clear, no buzz
thankyou sir this was extremely helpful.
You’re welcome Elke
Thanks for the simple explanation. Just taken delivery of a Minolta Auto Meter III and would not have known to have it pointing directly at the lens had I not seen this. Can't wait to see my results and move away from using my phone as a meter.
Hope your meter is working well! Very nice model. Thanks for your comment, Matt!
@@PictorialPlanet just dev'd the roll yesterday and they seem to have come out well - thank you!
wonderful tutorial
🙏
loving the Scottish intro music down in the south
The rolleiflex sl66! My favorite 6x6 camera
The best!
Commented from the wrong account before, oops! Good explaination, lovely camera (fellow SL user)!
I love my SL66! Aren’t they the best?
Incident metering landscapes works, as long as the meter is held in the same light that is hitting the subject of your photo.
Yes, although that light can be a mile away. If the sun is lighting my landscape shot I can still incident meter from my camera position as long as I'm in the sun too and pointing the incident meter towards the camera along the same axis as subject to camera. It's the same with spot metering shadows. The shadows are the same where I stand to the shadows a mike away if we are in the same light. There's no inverse square law with metering in the same light, the sun is too far away :)
The incident/spot meter combo sounds quite interesting.
Stay tuned! It's going to be a fun one :)
@@PictorialPlanet of that I have no doubts.
I still need to do this video but the weather hasn't been right. Haven't forgotten, Tony!
@@PictorialPlanet I have no doubts you have not forgotten. But until you post it I will just have to enjoy all the other fabulous content you are putting out.
Ha! I wish it was so good. However, I am indebted to you for your undoubted support. I have met so many good people through this endeavour, it's wonderful!!
Excellent clear and understandable explanation as ever John, looking forward to the rest of the series.
Thank you, Jevon!
Great clear explanation. I understand this now. What happens when you are say standing in the shade (or different light conditions than the subject) and measure the incident light? Clearly the amount that will fall on the meter is less than on the subject. How in your experience is the best way to deal with that? Maybe only a reflective reading is possible?? Would this be Duplex metering in your other video? Regards
To take an incident Meyer reading I have to be in similar light as my subject so doing it in the shade, if my subject is in sun, won't work. In these situations I either walk to the same light (if nearby) or spit meter. Duplex won't work.
@@PictorialPlanet thanks makes sense. If too far need to spot meter. Cheers
Well done! like your Videos more and more. Unfortunately my Minolta spotmeter has sometimes a loose contact and quits working then an by for a time. So i bought myself a cheap incident light meter at ebay and it is a new experience for me to work with. Nevertheless, I have pre-ordered the reveni labs spotmeter. The small device makes an interesting impression…
Hi SD. That spot meter looks quite exciting. Please let us know how you get on with it. Which incident meter did you get?
@@PictorialPlanet I got a Gossen Lunasix 3. The Revenilabs Spotmeter will be shipped in August / September. I am very curious how it will work with the kind of "head up display" function…
I owned a Lunasix 3 once. Very nice meter.
@@PictorialPlanet yes indeed. i hope the battery keeps long. there is such a adapter thing for 1,5V batteries in the Battery compartment. Have to check if it is metering right with it. The first film is promising
The Minolta Spot M and Spot F meters are probably the most ergonomic and best designed spot meters ever made. The electrics of such devices are not very complicated, so a loose connection may be fixed DIY or fairly cheaply by a service. They are also reputed to be the most accurate owning to their high level of color correction, sadly lacking in most of their competitors.
good video, nice for beginners, but a series on using the light meter, aka turning it on, setting the dials, etc. wouldn't go ary either.
I've added your idea to my list. This is a complicated light meter and frankly I don't use a lot of the functions but there's a couple that are good tips I could describe.
@@PictorialPlanet yes they are complicated, especially if you come straight from dslr's, where most is done automatically for you (3D-Matrix metering systems like in Nikon, etc.)- you set iso and that's it, with these sekonic and other hand_helds, they display differently, some Don't allow you to just set iso and let the meter give you the rest, they insist on you putting in shutter or iris values, and esp. if you have a rangefinder camera, Leica 'M' series for instance, then you can't preview the dof so can't be certain of the apature setting you want; or some meters have separate flash modes, and colour meters, etc, so some guidence on these is a real help, esp. for beginner film shooters as most affordable film cameras, and ALL Large Format cameras have NO meter inside, and knowing what to do, esp, with B&W film, what tone do we 'aim' the meter at, to give a "safe" shot.
Thanks Andy, you explain the problems new film/manual camera users have - noted for a future video :)
Do you know the trick of using your hand for a meter? According to a lot of my street photography heroes of the past, you can hold your hand up and use the light on your hand as a reading and then use that for the scene.
Any thoughts? Garry Winogrand for example didn’t use a meter for all his shots, either did Joel meyerowitz and he was shooting asa 25 kodachrome!
Finding Inspiration
ruclips.net/video/eMQtJaUcFeI/видео.html
what was your ISO set for when you metered? was it the box ISA of the film ?
Yes, if that's the iso you use (you may have your own iso for the film that you found through testing in which case use that instead).
Hello John. Do you calibrate a light meter to the camera before using it? If you do, how do you do it. I have a Lunasix F meter.
Lovely meter that Lunasix. I used one for many years. I have always calibrated my cameras using a grey card. I compare the readings of the camera to the hand held and note the adjustment needed (in EI) to bring the camera in line with my hand held. Most of the time I use the hand held meter and so with my cameras all calibrated to that it keeps my exposure and development times pretty consistent. Keep that Lunasix going, it's a beautiful meter.
@@PictorialPlanet Thank you for that reply John. Another question if i may. When using a lens with several 'lengths', e.g 55 - 200. Will incident metering need to be adjusted for different lengths of lens being used. I notice that on my Nikon F90X as I increase the length of the lens the metering changes the camera settings. By the way. Just waiting for your book to arrive.
Many zoom lenses change their maximum aperture as they zoom hence their described apertures like the Nikon 55-200 f4-5.6. However, the marked aperture (on lens or through viewfinder) is reasonably accurate. So, setting your camera up manually will provide the expected, dialled in exposure.
@@PictorialPlanet Thank you John.
Please clarify, when I’m using a reflective meter whether it’s an average or spot I’m reading the zone 5 exposure. How do the zones apply to incident meter reading, is it the same?
Meters don't know what they are pointing at. It could be a black cat in a coal shed or a white cat on a white sheet. In both cases, when using reflected light, the meter will measure the light and provide a setting that will render the scene as mid-grey aka zone 5. The photographer then has to adjust the setting to render the photograph correctly. However, with incident meter readings, using the white dome over the meter, the meter measures the light falling on the subject independent of the colour/reflectivity of the subject itself. Therefore the photograph will be true to life without adjustment by the photographer.
That right there sold me on getting a good incident meter b4 a spot meter. Most good camera spot meter seems like they can fake a spot meter reading. But incident metering is harder to do w a camera
I have a dome and flat diffuser. How do I use the flat diffuser. You vacation in Florida?
The dome is 3D, meaning it gets an overall measure of the light hitting a 3 dimensional subject (such as the tree and mirror ball). The flat diffuser is for measuring light on a defined path such as the light falling on a painting you are photographing. We will look at these in more detail in the series. I lived in Florida for some years but haven't been back for a long time.
The flat diffuser is used to measure a specific light source output. In this case. you must measure from the subject's location and point the flat disk directly at the light source. It is used to measure contrast ratios - how much light each source contributes to the overall lighting. it may help to understand the incident meter if you appreciate that it was invented in Hollywood to be used in the movie industry under situations where lighting control was and still is critical. By comparison, the hemisphere dome is intended to integrate the lighting of all applicable light sources and combine them into a total exposure measurement.
But what if the object is far away and in the shadow and you have a long telephoto lens. In this case the incident metering doesn't work? Spot metering would be more proper?
And I saw some youtubers metering the scene by putting a light meter in front of the lens toward the scene. How this technique is called? And why metering the reflected light from the scene is less accurate than incident metering?
Sorry for my english I'm from France.
Thanks for your comment, Di Wi. Just stand in some nearby shadow and point the incident meter parallel to the lens. The nearby shadow is the same as the distant shadow. Spot metering is also a valuable method. See my spot metering video.
@@PictorialPlanet Oh, thank you for the advice, haven't think about this trick. Yes, will see your other videos, very well explained.
Properly used, a reflection (spot) meter is always going to be more accurate than an incident meter. Many of the popular photo vlogers on YT use incident meters, and do so improperly, probably because they adopted the bad techniques offered by other YT videos. If you want a safe and sane YT video on how to use meters, both reflection and incident, look up Nick Carver's channel. He has an excellent video on the subject which is also part of a larger [photo course he teaches.
All my incident readings are 2 stops less than reflected, ie. f11 incident gives f8/5.6? Does this sound usual.
What are you pointing your meter at when taking a reflected?
The subject, usually portrait, therefore, face and upper body. Weston meter with invercone for incident readings. Thanks for such a prompt reply.
Thanks David. What's probably happening is that when you measure the reflected light the colour of the subject's clothing and skin is effecting how much light is being reflected. Darker colours reflect less light than brighter colours. This is why reflected meter readings need to be interpreted whereas incident meter readings are more meaningful. When using your meter as an incident meter you measure the actual amount of light falling on your subject so, in the final print, a grey card will look like a grey card, a white shirt will look like a white shirt, and a black cat will look like a black cat. If these same subjects were measured with a reflection meter, and not interpreted, then only the grey card would look right (meters think everything is a grey card).
@@PictorialPlanet Thanks, I n your experience, does it make sense that there is a -2 stop difference in incident v reflected readings?
There could be. The way to test your meter would be to take a reflected reading from a known object such as a grey card (zone 5) or some other known object. Adjust the meter reading for that object. Then compare to your incident reading. They should be very close. Remember, for your incident reading, to point from the object to the camera with your incident meter not at the light source!
incident light metering favors the preservation of highlights, not shadows.
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the objects in the scene can be no brighter than the incident light (except for exotic metrials or focusing shapes and such) so by measuring incident light, you define the highest zone the entire scene falling below it. however, you have no idea how deep are your shadows. they can be completely out of the film latitude VS the highlights.
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incident reading may be good for slides, old digital cameras or scientific experiments, but unsuitable for BW negative work. I spent a lot of time and film until I realized this when starting out.
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when pointing this out to people, some said I ought to remember the reflectivity of different meterials, grass, sky, water and so on. at this point I just bought spot sekonic and never looked back.
Incident light meter readings are the same as taking a reflected (spot) meter reading of a grey card which is pointing at the camera. It gives you an 18% grey reading of the light on the subject. It favours neither shadows or highlights.
@@PictorialPlanet yes, exactly. but when you do that, I argue that highlights are safe, but the shadows are not. here I am referring to a refelctive scene, no backlighting or sources in the frame - natural daytime landscape.
With the incident meter reading being zone 5 and the detailed shadows being zone 3 lithe exposure is closer to the shadows (2 stops) than the detailed highlights which are zone 8. If anything the incident meter readings is in favour of the shadows not the highlights. I'm not sure I understand your logic my friend? Maybe for slide film or digital exposure (which is like slide film) but not black and white film.
@@PictorialPlanet what i am trying to say is that your scene is not a grey card. you want your real shadows in zone 3, not hypothetical shadows that are 2 stops below 18% reflectance. this is because shadows define your negative exposure, not highlights (like in digital or a slide film). you can deal with highlights by altering development. but if you lose shadows you are done. I feel I have to make a video on this with diagrams and presentations. please excuse my lack of clarity
Ha! I've already made those videos my friend. Best you check out my channel, my website and my book.
But this will give a reading for 18% gray. If you’re shooting people, you will not add or subtract a stop (depending on fair or dark skin).
Just to make it clear for the readers you are correct, you will not add or subtract a stop when shooting people. You do that only when spot metering skin, not incident metering.
@@PictorialPlanet hmm, that’s what I meant actually :). The “not” should’ve been “need to”, hence mentioning fair/dark skin.
As long as you meant for spot metering. Incident metering give you the perfect metering for all skin tones. That's why it's used in studios to measure the flash light falling on the model.